by Joe Jackson
Sonja struck next, unleashing a blinding lightning bolt that tore through the ranks of the corlypsi that were following in Katarina’s wake. Several of them collapsed to the ground in shock, while others simply hopped away, hissing in pain and searching for cover. Sonja then gestured toward the mountains, and Erik could see a snowy squall descending on the area, even in the early days of summer. The bitter wind that preceded it was frigid, but Erik was pleased that it would affect the serilis-rir much more than him and his companions.
Katarina turned her horse gradually to keep its momentum from taking her too close or even into the village. She came back around, but the serilis-rir scattered in the face of another charge. Many of them had already been put to rout, the corlypsi quickly losing confidence in the face of the martial and magical assaults. Several flew off as soon as Sonja’s attention was drawn away, and others ran, using the village for cover to aid their escape. By the time the snow started to fall, Erik and his companions faced only nine elites and half a dozen corlypsi. The elite Katarina had trampled had not gotten back up, and Erik was pretty sure he was dead, or at least disabled. A couple of corlypsi were still down from Sonja’s lightning, but not many.
The elites tried to coordinate an attack. Sonja turned one of her earthen walls to mud, entrapping the elites to the east in its slickness, and she then dehydrated the mud, trapping the two serilis-rir.
“Hold ranks!” Corbanis shouted, and Erik inched a little closer, watching for whichever threat would reach them first.
Katarina kept the two elites to the north busy, chasing them down on horseback, which allowed Erik to concentrate on the ones approaching from the west. Corbanis backed up by Serenjols to counter the ones to the south. Within moments, the demons all seemed to lose confidence without even engaging. One by one, they took to the air and flew north, leaving only those two trapped by Sonja’s arcane handiwork behind. Erik started to say something when Sonja approached the helpless elites, but he held his tongue; he was curious what she would do.
Stopping a few feet away, Sonja made a gesture, and a light cracking sound could be heard. Erik wasn’t sure what she’d done until the elites both looked at their hands: she had apparently broken all of their claws. Another short gesture, and their feet were freed from the hardened entrapment. Sonja simply pointed to the north, and though she received a couple of growls and snarls in reply, the elites took wing and left in the wake of their fellows.
Erik and Corbanis walked over to Katarina, who was sitting astride her mount over the body of the elite she’d trampled. As soon as they got close, Erik could see the demon’s head was at a terrible angle, its neck clearly broken. He checked to make sure it was dead, and there was no pulse or breath. He nodded to Katarina, who returned the gesture, and then he motioned toward the village. The paladin took point on horseback, and the others fell into formation in a v-shape behind her.
They slowly approached the village, and what serilis-rir remained quickly took flight. Despite how few casualties there actually were, the serilis-rir clearly had no will to fight. Erik was pretty sure it was Sonja’s magic that really changed their minds, and even with the warmth overriding the squall she’d summoned, he was impressed. The Sonja who had agreed to go to the underworld – Mehr’Durillia, as the case may be – was never really confident in her magic or, apparently, her usefulness. But the Sonja who had just demoralized an entire village of enemies while only killing a couple of them…Erik had little doubt she’d be an archmage before long.
“Sonja,” Erik said, getting her attention, and she turned to face him. He put his hand to her cheek, met her eyes intently, and said, “You did well. I’m impressed.”
“Exceptionally well,” Corbanis agreed. Sonja sucked in her lips in embarrassment, and looked like her snout was going to cave in.
A quick search of the village turned up only a single serilis-rir when they reached the far end. It was possible there were some hiding, but they were clearly intent on avoiding trouble, and Erik was happy to do the same. These may have been holdouts from Seril’s army, but they seemed to be keeping to themselves, not interested in any more fighting. Erik would simply let the Earl of Marsdale – when a new one was selected, anyway – know that he needed to keep an eye on them, but otherwise leave them alone. The lone remaining elite demon, though, made no move to retreat, and Erik wondered if the others would soon return to spring an ambush.
Katarina went back to retrieve Gabrius’ horse and the rest of their belongings while the remainder of the group searched the village. “Sonja, any sense of the Tilcimer nearby?” Erik asked, but his sister shook her head.
“Gods and angels,” Corbanis said. “Look who that is!”
Erik glanced again at the remaining elite demon, but he had no idea who it was. He knew very few serilis-rir personally and by name. “Who is it?” he asked, looking at his siblings and friends to see if they knew.
“It is Atauridar,” Gabrius said. He drew his weapons and strode forward purposefully with Corbanis by his side. “Drop to your knees and surrender!”
Erik paused in shock. Atauridar was one of Seril’s highest-ranking generals during the Apocalypse, and had been in command of her southern legions in the heartlands. While Erik didn’t know enough about the elite demon to recognize him on sight, he knew that they had just captured one of the most hated and reviled creatures in the world. Erik wasn’t one to put too much stock into such hatred; in a situation like this, he would feel better simply taking the enemy into custody and letting someone else pronounce sentence.
“Don’t kill him,” he said after hesitating a moment.
“I had no intentions of doing so,” Gabrius answered with a nod.
“As much as I might like to,” Corbanis added. He threw the elite to the ground roughly and pulled his arms out behind him, shackling him. “What are you about? Why didn’t you run like the others?”
“Why bother?” the elite replied through gritted teeth with Corbanis’ knee planted in his spine. “What sort of a life is this?”
“You should have thought about that before you sided with the Devil Queen,” Corbanis said, rising up and lifting the demon roughly back to a kneeling position.
“Devil Queen?” Atauridar spat. “I served my creator. That’s what I was created for. You lot and your fathers before you…you’re the traitors. Are you satisfied with having served their gods? To be allowed in their cities but treated like a threat, an outsider? Is this the life you longed for?”
“Shut your mouth!” Corbanis said. “I’m going to take you to DarkWind, but nothing says your teeth have to come with us.”
“Ease off, dad,” Erik said calmly. “We may not be treated all that well, but I much prefer what we’ve got to the world Seril was trying to create.”
“You know nothing of the world she was trying to create,” the elite returned. “You know only what you have been told, and it is never that simple.”
“Where’s the Tilcimer?” Erik asked, in no mood to argue, and even less interested in what this foolish creature had to say.
“Up in the complex, though I would stay away from there if I were you,” Atauridar said. “You will find only pain and confusion if you meddle in things you don’t understand.”
“He must mean the cave I saw up the mountainside,” Gabrius said, gesturing up a long, winding path. “I can see it much more clearly from here.”
“It is not just a cave,” the demon countered. “You would be well-served to collapse it, and not venture inside.”
“Well, excuse us if we don’t take your word for it,” Erik said, rolling his eyes. “Gabrius, Aeligos, you two scout ahead and see if anything else is near the cave. If the Tilcimer shows up, fall back to us as quickly as you can. Sonja – if you would, check one more time to see if Sherman and Sharyn have been following us and maybe lost our trail? Dad, you can escort our ‘guest’ along, and we’ll see if we can bind him somewhere up in that cave.”
His sister began her scry
ing, but Erik touched her shoulder, drawing her attention back to him. “You’re not going to burn yourself out doing that all the time, are you?” he asked.
Sonja smiled and shook her head. “No; the way I call upon arcane power now, there’s almost no strain,” she answered. “I probably still need to be cautious, because I’m using power that’s in my blood, but I haven’t had any issues since…” She trailed off for a moment, and Erik didn’t miss the brief sparkle of withheld tears in her eyes. “Not since Uldriana showed me how to use it properly.”
“She was a mallasti, right?” Erik asked, and Sonja smiled through teary eyes. “You’re going to have to tell me all about it some time. Sounds like she was a special girl.”
“You have no idea.” Sonja patted Erik’s shoulder and then went back to looking around through her eyes in the sky. She glanced around for a minute but then shook her head, likely both to dispel the arcane sight and answer Erik’s inquiry. “No sign of them.”
They began to ascend a rocky path up the mountainside. The closer they got to the cave, the more they could see that Atauridar’s words were no idle comment: the entryway was carved, and it seemed unlikely it was a natural cave at all. Gabrius paused halfway up and knelt in the dirt, examining tracks. He leaned over and began sniffing around, and he glanced about as if there might be someone lying in ambush nearby. Erik looked around as well, but there really wasn’t anywhere for someone to hide on the rocky path.
“The Tilcimer passed this way, but it is not alone,” the half-brys paladin said. “There is at least one other here.”
“Anything you care to share?” Erik asked their prisoner. Atauridar met his gaze but then simply looked away. “I thought not.”
The late afternoon sunlight was all but extinguished by the mountains by the time they reached the entryway. Katarina caught up with them, the horses able to climb the rocky path slowly but with only a little difficulty. Once at the cave entryway, Katarina hammered in a stake and tethered the animals, and she and Gabrius set them up with feedbags and some water. The human paladin produced a torch from her saddle, but Sonja waved away the need and summoned a hovering globe of light that began to follow her.
Approaching the archway, carved into what appeared to be a sheer granite face, there was writing in serilian around the open door. In the brief moments Erik took to read the inscription, he knew it was going to be problematic. Katarina obviously couldn’t read it, and she waited for someone to translate it for her. Erik pointed out each word as he read it aloud to her: Sanctuary of the elder goddess; only those of her blood may enter freely.
“Those of her blood?” Katarina repeated. “So only serilis-rir and maybe serilian-rir?”
“Half-demons,” Serenjols quipped, and Erik couldn’t help but laugh along with his other siblings. Corbanis didn’t understand the joke, but even Gabrius’ face showed traces of a smile.
“Oh, would you knock it off,” Sonja said playfully.
“No sense debating. Let’s find out,” Aeligos said, and he started forward.
Erik yanked him back by the collar of his cloak. “We’re not sacrificing the brains of this outfit to find out if we can enter,” he said. “I’ll–”
Before he could even finish, Gabrius strode forward through the archway. There were no sparks or other signs of defensive enchantment, but Katarina took a step forward a moment later and found herself unable to cross the threshold.
“I guess they don’t consider themselves very important,” Aeligos said with a shake of his head. “I don’t like this. We shouldn’t just leave Katarina out here on her own.”
Katarina began unpacking her tent and other gear from behind her saddle. “Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’ll set up here and keep watch. If Sherman and Sharyn arrive, I’ll at least have some company. If you like, you can leave Atauridar or whatever his name is with me.”
“There are prison cells within; you can leave me there,” the elite demon said.
Erik beheld him curiously. “Why would you tell us that?”
“Because you obviously will not trust me alone with a single human woman,” he replied. “When you perish in the depths of her lair, my companions will eventually come and find me.”
Erik looked at his father, who clenched his jaw and a fist. Erik made a placating gesture, and his father refrained from punching the obnoxious demon. “Sonja, is there any way you can disable or bypass this barrier?” Erik asked.
“With time, maybe,” Sonja said. “But I’d have to study it for a while.”
“Don’t waste the time,” Katarina said. “Go on, chase down that demon and put an end to it. I’ll be fine out here. If anything comes, I’ll mount up and head southeast toward Marsdale.”
“All right,” Erik said with a sigh. He waved for the others to follow. Gabrius offered his bow and quiver to Katarina, but she reminded him that she already had one, pointing to the side of her horse’s saddle. Sonja paused long enough to alter the shape of the rocks around the entryway. She created a concealed spot for Katarina and the horses, a stone trough to fill with water for the animals, and a spot for the paladin to set up her tent and remain out of sight. Katarina laughed heartily at the display, but thanked Sonja profusely.
As soon as Erik crossed the threshold, the air changed. Gone was the cool, crisp, clean mountain air, replaced by the smell of old bones and musty items like books. There were swirls in the dust just inside the door, as though the mountain air did come in and disturb things, but it did nothing to clear out the dankness of the air. There were also footprints, though they were numerous, and it was hard for Erik to tell how many people may have left them. If Gabrius had an opinion, he kept it to himself. The passageway was narrow, but after about a hundred feet, it widened out into a proper corridor.
Gabrius took point, using his sharp eyes and nose to detect any trouble. The way he stuck his tongue out every so often said the air smelled even worse to him, and Erik was oddly thankful for just a moment that he didn’t have the senses of a half-brys. They followed Gabrius farther down the corridor, and eventually came across jail cells on either side of the passage. There were six per side, and just a cursory examination showed that they weren’t all emptied out before the Devil Queen met her end. Unidentifiable remains lay in dusty heaps in three of the cells, and though he entertained locking the obnoxious elite in with some decomposing remains, Erik decided not to be an ass.
There were no keys anywhere in the vicinity, but Aeligos pulled a set of fine lockpicks out from behind his right bracer and got to work on one of the cells. He had it open in short order, and they roughly shoved the shackled elite inside and closed the door. Aeligos produced another tool that allowed him to lock the door, but even he was surprised when Sonja transmuted the metal of the door to remove the lock altogether.
“Let his companions get him out of that,” Sonja said, casting a narrow-eyed glare at the demon. “You’d better hope we come back.”
“As you say,” he said indifferently.
The group continued along the corridor, and Gabrius cautiously opened a door off the side. Sonja used another enchantment to detect tricks or traps, but the place seemed harmless so far. Erik reconsidered that thought once they entered the room.
Spread out around the room were numerous tables, like stone beds. They were outlined in lettering he didn’t recognize, and even Aeligos and Sonja had no insights on what was written. Most of the tables were empty, but the desiccated remains of a few unfortunate creatures still lay on a couple of them. It almost struck Erik as a mortuary, but a part of him knew the truth and refused to let the rest of his mind ignore it: this was a laboratory, where the Devil Queen had apparently performed experiments.
“Any idea what these were?” he asked, gesturing toward the mummified remains.
“Based on the smell, I am inclined to guess gnolls,” Gabrius said. “Though they are so long decomposed, it is not easy to tell. They are certainly not human or rir, though I am sure you came to th
at conclusion on your own, based on the hair.”
“Could they be werewolves?” Erik asked.
Gabrius glanced at him, then back at one of the mummies. “I suppose that could be.”
“What was she doing here?” Serenjols mumbled.
“I’m not sure I want to know,” Sonja answered. She made a few gestures and the room came to life, flames sprouting in braziers and oil lamps about the walls. She closed her eyes and held her hand out in the directions of the bodies. She gasped and opened her eyes, and then she made her way from the room quickly.
“Sonja?” Erik asked, chasing after her. He found her out in the hallway, leaning against the wall with her eyes closed, catching her breath. “Are you all right?”
“That was rather stupid of me,” she answered, looking farther up the hallway. “I’m not sure what I expected to find. She was torturing these people, pulling them apart piece by piece to see how they worked.”
“Vicious, spiteful old bitch,” Erik muttered. He poked his head back into the room, but the others all came out after a few more moments. “Sonja says she was experimenting on these prisoners, pulling them apart.”
“Let’s continue,” Corbanis said with a shake of his head.
Sonja extinguished the lamps and braziers with a gesture, and the rest of the group continued along. Gabrius took point again without further direction. The complex broadened, with several more chambers like the first farther in. Though these other rooms were set up similarly, they had dead serilis-rir in them. Dead wasn’t exactly accurate, though; Erik could tell the ones they’d found had never been alive. It was like Seril had made them, but never given them life. He wondered what Seril’s goals were when she used this complex, and if this had perhaps been the birthplace of the serilis-rir as a whole.